


Bulletproof

by darwinsdonut



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Brief Hint of Yorklina, F/M, Follows Canon, Mainelina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 01:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14438136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darwinsdonut/pseuds/darwinsdonut
Summary: A brief tale of love and pain and rage and ache. Or, canon Mainelina.





	Bulletproof

He didn’t ever quite know if she knew. 

It had started with laughter, as any good story should. Sitting in the kitchen after a long mission, while North cooked and South bitched and CT smiled sunlight on them all, Maine had made some passing comment and Carolina had stared in shock for a brief moment before bursting into cackles of laughter. Maine couldn’t help but grin at the sound. 

It had grown through memories and dreams. From the first time he’d made her laugh and joined her echoing sounds of glee, Maine had felt far more open around his fellow Freelancer. Her green eyes invited him to speak his thoughts as he would with few else. They spoke of childhoods nearly forgotten and goals they’d since abandoned. They spoke of friends lost to time and family they didn’t often think about. She began to appear in his sleep, a vibrant figure of vibrant red hair and a laugh that could bring warmth to the coldest arctic plains. 

They trained, and they fought, and they went on missions. They were unstoppable when they had each other. Even after Tex’s appearance, Maine continued to be whatever Carolina needed, whoever she demanded, and anything she wanted. Even as he watched her deteriorate. Even as she faded into a hardened statue of the laughing girl he’d somehow fallen for. 

There was only a single time from Tex’s first exhibition of her skills that Maine heard that laugh again- and he wasn’t even the cause. 

“Hey there, Carolina.” 

Maine had paused at the smooth purr of York’s voice from around the corridor corner. Carolina responded, gruff as ever, “Not now, York. I have paperwork to fill out, and another training round to complete, and I still need to clean off my armor-” 

“Sounds like you could use some help.” 

“I’m good.” 

“Carolina-” 

“Not now-!” 

She cut off suddenly as Maine heard a crash and a thump from her direction, and he started forward to help- only to stop as he heard her raucous laughter, followed by, “York, you _idiot!_ Let me help you up!” 

Maine had retreated, heart thumping dissonant and lonesome behind steel cage ribs. He’d been trying to cause that laughter for weeks, and… Well, of course York had succeeded where he had failed. 

It had been a quick discussion with the Director. Carolina had refused the AI, and the Director had offered it to Maine at her recommendation. He’d thought had been a sign of… Well, it didn’t matter now. Maine accepted Sigma, and requested implantation as soon as possible. 

He didn’t know it would be just another bullet he took for her. 

When he woke, another voice spoke for him- and he let it. 

It was hard to care too much when he hadn’t been able to get through to Carolina. Maine would never again wonder if his voice was as smooth as York’s, or if he sounded too gruff, because he hadn’t had a voice in over a week, and now he had Sigma. The AI immediately analyzed his admiration for Carolina and the spark that flowed from him to her. 

_It seems you’ve taken a lot of risks to keep her safe. Tell me, how many bullets has she taken for you?_

And Maine hated it, but it was too late. 

He turned to the faintest growls or hisses when Sigma said too much. The AI soon learned it could spout its vile words about anyone and Maine wouldn’t care, but Carolina was untouchable. 

Even as the hell-creature’s radical ideals and venomous thought processes began to take over Maine, he still held onto one thing: _Carolina._

When night time came and Maine had Sigma go silent so he could sleep, his mind turned to the memory of her musical laugh. The clear green eyes that seeped sarcasm and bluntness. The firm, square hands she had only once entwined with his own. 

But even those began to fade. 

As it became more and more obvious just how little time she had for him, and Sigma’s voice ever increased in volume, nights dragged without the vibrancy that once permeated thoughts of her. Picturing her became picturing her with York and forgetting him. Picturing her became picturing her fighting Tex and forgetting him. Any image of her soon became tainted, and though he tried to keep that fact from Sigma, the AI soon found out. 

It took only a few hours for him to break completely. 

Maine had always been strong. Invincible. The type to drop from a building, design his own weapon, survive twelve shots to the throat. The toughest of the tough, the obvious victor in any fight. But physical strength couldn’t save him, and without anyone making an effort to get him through, his mental strength had fallen away and away and away, till all that remained were clinging memories of what had almost been. After years of fighting, years of enduring, years of being strong- Maine finally gave in, and allowed himself to be weak. It was both his greatest failure and the only time in his life he’d ever let himself rest. 

He came to, briefly, in the barest glimpse of a moonlit moment three weeks later. 

He remembered her falling, thrust off the cliff, nothing but betrayal and pain radiating from her- 

And he hated himself. 

He struggled, not wanting to kill more friends, not wanting the damn AI to still be in, not wanting to- to remember- 

He gave in. 

When the time came at last that Washington turned on him, he fell- 

And it was a fall he took, because of the one he hadn’t taken for her. 

As the ice crashed around him, he had only a fragment of clarity, a musical laugh and vibrant green eyes. 

He closed his eyes as black water rushed in. 

And at last, he would see her again. 

* * *

Carolina thought about him a lot. 

She had never appreciated Maine and all his quiet strength and lingering looks enough when she had him. And she had never truly had him how she’d wanted. 

It took Washington months to figure it out. He had talked to Carolina about the Meta, and about Maine, and his own personal regrets and how much had changed. He had talked to her about all the things he had done to try and bring back the man they had once known. And she had told him that he never knew Maine at all, not really. 

Washington had stared at her quizzically that night, struck by how the moonlight hit shining eyes, how precipitation fell across her cheeks from green skies. 

“No one knew him how I did- and I never even told him the truth of it.” 

Washington’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, and then turned to the sky to give her privacy. “What was the truth of it? What would you have told him?” 

“That he was always in my dreams, and he was always my favorite memories. That there was no one quite as good a person as him, no one quite as strong, and no one who so badly needed a rest.” 

She paused to catch her breath and he heard it crack in her throat. 

“I just hope some day I’ll see him again.”


End file.
